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Baked Grits

A baked dish of grits mixed with milk, butter, sugar, eggs, and baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Baked Grits

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the grits base

  1. In a pan, combine grits, boiled milk, 2 ounces of sugar, and 2 ounces of butter.

  2. Heat the mixture on the stove until the grits swell.

Make the egg mixture

  1. In a separate bowl, beat 6 ounces of butter and 5 eggs until stiff.

  2. Add 4 ounces of sugar to the egg mixture and mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Combine the grits mixture with the egg mixture and mix thoroughly.

  2. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

  3. Serve with preserves.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Grits
Form the bulk of the dish, swelling in hot milk to give a soft, starchy body.
Eggs
Beaten into the batter to add structure and help the baked dish set.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing tenderness and flavor to the baked grits.
Boiled milk
Hydrates the grits and provides moisture for a creamy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to browning in the baked top.

The step that matters

Beating the butter and eggs until stiff. Beaten eggs trap air and add structure, so the mixture rises and sets lightly in the oven. Under-beating leaves a dense result, and the eggs must be fully combined with the grits so the custard bakes evenly.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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